When She Was Good (Cyrus Haven, #2)

by Michael Robotham

A car can represent who you are or who you want to be. Wealthy. Stylish. Fast. Sporty. A man might never find his dream woman, but he can own his dream car.

After my parents died, my grandparents did their best to make me feel loved and protected, but they couldn’t save me from my survivor’s guilt. I became a cutter and gouger, using razor blades, knives, box cutters, and protractors to carve insults into my skin.

The needle turns art into suffering and suffering into art and speaks to nobody except me.

She’s not the quickest mover in the world, not since she got pregnant and ate her own body weight in Nutella.

We lived like that for almost two years—up and down, having good weeks and bad, never knowing what to expect. Sharing a house with a paranoid schizophrenic is like carrying a time bomb that you can hear ticking, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but always ticking.

blur. I keep telling myself that I love Elias and want what’s best for him, but that doesn’t extend to my wanting his freedom. I know I am supposed to separate the person from the act, to hate the sin but forgive the sinner. I’ve tried and failed. A better me, a kinder soul, an empath, a saint, could give Elias the absolution he’s seeking. I can’t.

I’m reminded of a Groucho Marx line about not wanting to join a club that would accept him as a member.

Cyrus says I lie because I want people to like me. He says I’m trying to impersonate someone interesting, but I don’t care about being believed or being liked. Things sound better when I lie about them. More authentic.

My anger makes everybody uncomfortable.

I am used to small places. Beneath beds. Behind walls. Below the stairs. I’m like an octopus that can squeeze into any jar, twisting my body into weird shapes and filling space like water.

Cyrus thought I was protecting a monster, but the real monsters live in big houses, behind high walls, and keep children locked in towers. Terry wasn’t a monster. He was my prince.

Is this what it’s like for Evie, always looking over her shoulder, imagining someone is searching for her? Before going to bed, I go back downstairs to check the windows and doors are locked.

“OK. Good. Now come on out and we’ll play a game.” “What game?” “I’ll teach you to play poker.” “What’s poker?” He laughed. “Poker is life. Poker is art. Poker is war.”

I thought I was getting a head start on life, when I was missing it completely.

We hug as though we’re old friends. Adversity will do that.

I want to tell her that pretty is bullshit! Pretty is an accident of nature. Pretty is for girls who live next door and fairy stories about magic mirrors or glass slippers. Pretty is for tourist paintings pinned to railing fences and postcards of castles on rocky headlands. Pretty isn’t for the likes of me.

Guthrie is all bark and no bite, a big man with a small mind. He shouldn’t be a social worker. He should be a janitor or a night security guard or a baggage handler. Some job that doesn’t involve dealing with people.

He points to a pair of black leather sofas that look expensive but are less comfortable than a middle seat on a packed red-eye flight.

Ruby is wearing black woolen tights and a T-shirt with Kurt Cobain on the front. We don’t know who Kurt Cobain is, but he looks kind of hot in a skinny, meth-addict-with-teeth sort of way.

“The age-old rule of policing,” says Sacha. “When in doubt, blame it on the dead guy.”

It’s strange when I lie to someone and watch to see if they swallow it completely or show any signs of doubt. Marty has one of those faces that is so open and easy to read like I’m looking at pictures in a children’s book.

I can go anywhere I want. London. Edinburgh. Manchester. Why does freedom feel so small, like something has ended rather than begun?

Suddenly angry, I think about peeing on her toothbrush or rubbing her pajamas around the toilet bowl, but I don’t hate her that much. I don’t hate her at all. I hate my jealousy.

There is that term again: “a good man.” What does a good man do? How is he different from a normal man or a gentleman or any of the other “men”

I seem to be doing all the traveling. Nobody ever comes to me. Either that or they are barging into my life uninvited, telling me how they can fix things that aren’t broken, but only if I make the sacrifices.

People have been making me promises ever since I can remember and none of them are ever kept.

There are different types of silence. This one is redolent with disappointment and sadness.

I relax. Tilda fills the kettle and makes tea. Why do people think everything will be better if they pour boiling water on dried leaves?

I’m not sure if we learn anything from history. Every generation makes the same mistakes and offers the same excuses.

sometimes forget how naive and unworldly Evie is, despite her ordeals. She has experienced more tragedy than most of us endure in a lifetime, yet we expect her to be grateful for our help or to have higher ideals. Where would she have learned those?

“No, you don’t have to be sorry. You deserve more than being sorry. What you’ve done, how you survived, you deserve more.”

Lying is so fundamental to our existence, it is wired into our DNA. That’s why babies learn to fake cry before they’re a year old and to bluff by the age of two. By four a child is an accomplished liar, and by five, he or she realizes that truly outrageous lies are less likely to be believed.

People think they want the truth, but the opposite is true. Honesty is mean and rough and ugly, while lying can be kinder, softer, and more humane. It’s not honesty that we want but consideration and respect.